A Vivid Vision

I was actually unfortunate enough to be at a health care Town Hall meeting in Tampa a week ago. Let me just say that the amount of hatred that I saw from the conservatives was unbelievable. One speaker told of how he was diagnosed with kidney cancer, and a woman had the audacity to say “GOOD!”. This not being enough, I noticed the same woman came in hunched over in a walker. Honestly, I have my quarrels with the Republican party, but I am starting to believe that this party is turning into a party of hate. But now, more of my observations:

The GUEST SPEAKER (not the person who was running the meeting or the council answering the questions we had) was Congresswoman Kathy Castor. She was not there to answer your questions, so the outrage that was shown when she wasn’t there for the Q & A session was not even close to being necessary. She tried, and successfully got her point out, but not many people LISTENED. The conservatives were destined to yell over her every word, making it hard to hear or to you know, get INFORMED. There was space for 200 people in the venue, and 1500 people tried to get in. Some people came in as far as Collier county (4 hours away). The 1300 people who did not get a spot, did not take it sitting down. What I witnessed was adults regress in to childlike behavior, they pushed and shoved at the door only to be pushed back by YOUNG DEMOCRATS (NOT union members) who reminded them that there is something called a “fire code” and that not everyone is able to get in. As a courtesy, they allowed the doors to  stay open to let the people who couldn’t be in listen. They did not graciously take this courtesy as they began to holler and scream to the point where the door had to be closed. The man who was so called “attacked” , was not attacked, he was just a victim of all the chaos that transpired when the doors were being closed. I also forgot to note that the Democrats or pro-health care reformers were severely outnumbered because Rush Limbaugh told his stooges to come to this town meeting on his mockery of a TV show. These people were not here because of health care. They were here (and don’t take this offensively, I honestly believe this is the harsh truth) because a black man took “their America”. I believe this because of the amount of racism I heard out of their mouths. The chants of “get the illegals out of here” and “close the borders” became less of an anti illegal immigrant chant, and more of an anti Hispanic agenda. These people knew nothing about health care, but they did know that they are angry. They are broke, losing their homes and jobs and they are angry. Despite this, they said “Oh well!” to the people who don’t have health care. Its always “Oh Well!” when its not you, when you are not in the 50 million without heath care its the hell with them. They thump their bibles so much but they forget about taking care of thy neighbor. What made me angrier is the ignorance of the far right. They quoted a bill that was doctored up as if it is the gospel. THE BILL YOU KEPT SAYING READ IS DOCTORED!! Health care is not encouraging euthanasia of the elderly and if you like your health care you can keep it!!! All it is doing is adding government competition to the market (sorry but health is a for profit entity if you didn’t notice) to bring down the prices. I had a man already trying to blame the defect on Obama, and a man that said “Keep the government out of Medicare”. My mother lost it when a man was naive enough to believe that bush had nothing to do with health care.Its sickening when something so morally imperative such as the idea that everyone should be able to see a doctor, is able to be debated. They throw the words socialism, Marxist so flippantly,loosely, and INCORRECTLY that it will make a history teacher blush. Learn then judge. Their hate and anger  is driven by their ignorance. The scary thing is they speak in volumes and in masses.

Music: Flobots - The Rhythm Method (Move!)